Laws & Acts
This 1862 law gave settlers 160 acres of land if they farmed it for five years.
What is the Homestead Act?
The last major Native American conflict occurred here in 1890
What is the Wounded Knee Massacre?
Farmers who built homes from sod were called what?
What are Sodbusters or Soddies?
This invention fenced off the open range.
What is barbed wire?
This Populist slogan urged farmers to fight for reform: “Raise less corn and more ____.”
What is hell?
This 1887 law divided Native tribal lands into individual plots.
What is the Dawes Act?
General Custer was defeated by the Sioux and Cheyenne at this 1876 battle.
What is the Battle of Little Bighorn?
These insects destroyed many crops in the Great Plains.
What are grasshoppers?
This major construction linked the East and West coasts.
What is the Transcontinental Railroad?
This movement represented farmers and laborers fighting big business.
What is the Populist movement?
This law was designed to help Native Americans become farmers.
What is the Dawes Act?
This battle symbolized the end of Native resistance on the Plains
What is Wounded Knee?
The belief that “Rain follows the plow” meant what?
That farming would improve the climate.
This industry grew after the demand for beef increased.
What is the cattle industry?
The Populist Party wanted this change to the money system.
What is free silver (bimetallism)?
The government set aside these areas for Native Americans to live on.
What are reservations?
U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of Cheyenne at this 1864 massacre.
What is the Sand Creek Massacre?
The animal most important to Native American survival on the Plains.
What is the buffalo?
Towns that grew quickly after gold or silver was discovered were called what?
What are boomtowns?
Oliver Hudson Kelley founded this organization to help farmers.
What is the Grange?
This reform movement by farmers and workers demanded free silver and railroad regulation.
What is Populism?
The Dawes Act and the Wounded Knee Massacre both represented what larger theme?
What is the decline of Native American independence?
Two challenges faced by homesteaders on the Plains were ________ and ________.
What are drought and isolation?
The completion of this project in 1869 encouraged new settlement and trade.
What is the Transcontinental Railroad?
This Populist leader gave the famous “Cross of Gold” speech in 1896.
Who is William Jennings Bryan?